King Croesus

This blog is about the KCCD2009 (King Croesus Contempt for Death) Trip and it's preparations. The journey will be performed on 2x 1939 Nimbus motorcycles with sidecars and ETD is April 2009. ETA is unknown, as you never know if it's a Sweet Chariot or an Infernal Machine you ride.

Thursday, 26 August 2010

Bolivia

Upon arrival in La Paz it was already dark, despite some of the easiest customs so far on the trip. The Bolivians officers are obviously more interested in a good conversation none of the involved understands. I still don’t speak Spanish, and they still don’t understand English. I think we made great friends.

La Paz is fairly big, and systematic as a trash dump site. As most dump sites, it’s located in a steep slope, and I arrive on the top. Obviously center of town with the hostels has to be down, so I go down, but unfortunately too far. At the bottom I realize I had taken too much advantage of the gravity, and start to work my way up again.

Easier said than done, at 3600 meters above sea level there isn’t much left of the bottomless pit of torque and 22 horsepower. The hills are steep and I get quite a bit up before it’s a lost case.

I take off the air cleaner so the beast can breathe a bit more, and plan the junctions so I don’t have to stop. After a lot of attempts and zigzagging different roads I’m in the center again. To go down took me a half hour; to go back up took me two hours.

First and third gear starts to go on strike on the way up, and get noticeably worse the last hour. They’ve caught up the Bolivian culture, and the bike is more concerned about blocking the roads than getting me to bed that night. I do make it anyway, and get to bed mighty tired.

Well rested the next morning I’m trying to find a place with WIFI and breakfast, in vain. I get met by the Peruvian and Bolivian battle cry, “No hay”* everywhere. Further, the thought of the soon to die totally gearbox makes me further frustrated.

The plan is to do the Yungas Road, the next day. The so called death road goes down to Coroico, and involves a 3500 meter climb up to 4700 meters on the way back, not feasible without the first gear.

The frustration goes over to irritation. It seems to be no justice in the world, driving half way around the world and have to skip the Yungas does not make sense. If the gearbox had broken two days later it would have been ok.

Frustration goes over to idiocy. I decide to do the Yungas anyway. I will always get down, and to worry about the ascend is to take problems in advance.

Luck is on my side as always, next day my old friends Carlos and Elenize appear in town with their Honda Africa Twin. Carlos sends off Elenize on a bicycle down the death road, while he joins me. At least I’m not alone when the trouble sooner than later will show up.

The way down goes well, despite not being able to brake on first with the engine. The Nimbus brakes were designed in the thirties when the road was built so it matches well. The road proves fairly boring and not deadly at all so it’s quite a disappointment, though scenic.

At the bottom the first gear is completely picked up by the oh mighty Father in the gearbox heaven, I can’t even start the bike on first though I stand on the shifter. It’s the second that rules from now on.

It works ok up to 3500 meters. Then I have to take off the air cleaner again, and that takes me up to about 3800 meters. From there on it’s “No hay”, the bike didn’t say it, but if it could I knew it would.

Rescue is at bay and is called Carlos and Africa Twin, we got a strap and he’s got the power in his Honda. He hauls me to the top, and back to La Paz it’s only downhill. I made it both up and down the Death Road, thanks to Carlos, just a pity it’ll be “No hay” first and third gear the next 3000 kilometers to Brazil.

*No hay is the indigenous national slogan for Peru and Bolivia, and means something like “There isn’t”. No matter what you ask for the reply will normally be “No hay”, and the higher altitude the more “No hay” there is. “No hay” is recorded in the literature at least as early as the 1970íes by Ted Simon when he tried to buy meet in Peru, but is probably phenomenon centuries old.

Lama fetus is said to bring good luck, and is obligatory to dig down under houses when being built. I wanted to try it on my transmission, but the odor made me re-evaluate the plan.

Indians stick to traditional food like pizza.

Centro La Paz

The San Francisco Plaza, La Paz

To Coroico it’s 76 kilometers, and almost 3500 meters down

There are still some Lorries and buses on the old road, but far from enough to make it interesting.

I got to this point, but not any further. A properly working gearbox in not overestimated in the Andes.

Carlos is the hero of the day, and towed me with his white Honda horse to the top.

“Pedersen Lastebil” is probably missing their truck. This truck used to run close to my hometown and was either stolen or sold to Bolivia. A quarter of the trucks here is coming from Scandinavia and still has the stickers from the first owners.

Sties Termotransport used to be the biggest logistics company in Norway for termo cargo. They obviously flagged out and moved to Bolivia.

Bolivias sister town of Raufoss, Norway. Raufoss is in Norway famous for being the asshole of the world, and is pretty much like this town, plus a roundabout and a light junction.

Wednesday, 18 August 2010

Suffering from altitude sickness and freezing crown jewels off in the Andes

I finally left Lima leaving Klaus and the Infernal Machine alone to sort out their problems together, which meant Klaus wrapping the relic of a bike in a box, throwing on some holy water and shipping it to South Africa where his cracked engine block could be replaced.

It proves easy to find the way out of Lima, mostly because I’m already on the south side of town and soon I’m back home on the Pan American Highway. I must admit it feels good to be alone, no matter how good friends you are it’s good to get a break after 50 000 kilometers and 16 months.

Peru offers some truly boring roads along the coast. Its desserts, which is fairly cold, and it doesn’t get better by extreme humidity and frequent fog you almost must cut through with a machete. Headwind also takes its toll on the speed, but all in all I am happy while driving along the Pacific.

At a gas station in the middle of nowhere there’s some tables and chairs outside. Two guys are sitting there drinking cheap rum and having a fiesta. After all it’s a Monday and no reason to not celebrate. They offer me a drink, and when I decline they generously offer me to buy them another bottle. I politely decline this too, it appears that they had more than enough already.

When it’s due to call it the day I end up in Ica. Ica seems to be a shithole, so I go a few kilometers off the Pan American to an oasis called Huacachina, thrown in between some obese sand dunes. A touristy place, but fairly spectacular and with a few cheap hostels.

As I walk into one of the cheap places I immediately spot three old Yamaha Teneres, it’s the Dutch Dangelberries. We’d spent a few days with them up in north Peru and thought they were around Lima now. When I caught them red handed at the bar they looked like they had seen a ghost, but as the shock left them they were able to pretend they were happy to see me again.

We hung out and moved on together down the coast. The last night before waving goodbye to the Pacific we stayed in Camana. It was a new record for the Dutch with hauling 400 kilometers in a day, which is not bad for traveling on old Japanese bikes.

From you leave the coast and towards the inlands the climbing starts, and goes on steadily. When you get some 1500 meters above sea level the temperature also rise and the humidity get less. The condition for riding improves.Halfway to Arequipa we split up, they will hang out there for a fiesta while I’ll be pushing on to make miles. I got a ship to catch in Sao Paolo, Brazil, disgustingly soon.

I reach Arequipa about noon and stop to patch a couple of pinched inner tubes, as well as stocking up with water and food. It is fairly remote until I reach Juliaca, which I will for sure not reach that day. Bottom line is that it will be camping, most likely in a nature reserve full of vicunas, the somewhat retarded cousin of the llama.

Arequipa is at 2325 meters above sea level, which means I got 2200 more meters to climb the next 150 kilometers before I’m on the top. It leaves with a total of 4500 meters increase of altitude in a day, which I thought should be fine.

At about 3000 meters I start getting shorter on breath, which is normal at this altitude. At 3500 meters the driving gets tiring, and I feel the head works slower. Getting over 4000 I start feeling like a mix between drunk and hung-over, after how I’ve heard people describe those conditions.

However, I’ve never had altitude sickness, and as a super hero I should not be prone to it so I just face it with ignorance.

On the positive side the bike runs better than expected, I never have to go down to first gear. Before heading up I put in a new virgin jet and a new needle in the carburetor, as the old ones have 70 000 kilometers on it and some odd 5000 liter of dirty fuel in 40 different countries has passed through it. It obviously paid off with the new components.

Darkness is approaching and it’s time to find a place to camp. The temperature has been dropping steadily as the sun has been getting lower, but it’s still ok despite an altitude of 4500 meters. I take off the road, and find a place to hide beside some rocks.

While getting out the gear, rolling out the mattress and the sleeping bag I realize it’s actually getting a bit cold, I’m tired and freezing already. When I put on some water to boil and preparing food I realize it’s getting cold for real. The fingers are getting stiff and less cooperative.

I feel dizzy and have a headache, as I prepare for the night I sometimes loose balance and have to support myself on the bike. It occurs to me that it might not become a pleasant night. The last thing I do before hitting the sack is to boil up 2,5 liters of water, pour it into a bottle and throw it into the sleeping bag. I put on wool underwear and creep inside.

Normally it feels great after a few minutes when you get warm in the sleeping bag. This time it never happens. If I keep the head inside the bag it bearable, but then I can’t breathe as the air is too thin. Keeping the head outside I can breathe, but shakes from hypothermia.

I keep on switching between head inside and outside. It’s too cold to fall to sleep, and if I did probably I would not wake up again. Laying and shaking for a couple of hours I realized I got a poncho in my sidecar. But to get it I have to get out of the sleeping bag which means even more freezing for a while. It takes some time to man up for the task.

During the operation I notice a bottle of water is already half frozen, it’s actually cold for real and not only in my mind. I wrap myself in the poncho, get back in the bag and throw the driving jacket over the sleeping bag. It helps; I stop shivering after a while and get some short moments of sleep occasionally during the night.

The last time I wake up is before sunrise. I don’t freeze as long as I stay in the sleeping bag. I enjoy the sunrise horizontally, and start the process of getting up. It takes me an hour and quite some aborted attempts. Another two hours passes by making myself coffee, waking up and packing the gear. Again I get reminded the llama climate, even the box of wine has frozen into a brick.

Everything is in slow motion and a pain to do. I feel less dizzy, but still more like a zombie than a human being but after some energy drink with coca leaves I’m somewhat good to go at 8 am. I’ve had enough camping this week.